Currently there are a number of prior art life jackets or personal flotation devices (PFD). Most of these known devices only create a way to help the person in the water stay afloat. But, floating is only part of the problem of safety in the water for the wearer of a life jacket. Other problems exist that necessitate being aware of the exact location of the person floating in the water. The prior safety vests generally ignore the need for higher visibility in many circumstances, for example: water sports activities, swimming, working or playing around water. Known vests are unable to meet the needs of the industry, because they do not help create enough visual awareness of the person in the water, to aid boaters or others to see the actual position of the person in the water. Current PFD devices do not give the wearer additional visibility, even if brightly colored, because 90% of the PFD is beneath the waterline when the person is floating. Also, boaters are traveling at relatively fast speeds and will need time to react to safely avoid conflict with any person in the water once they spot them. They need as much distance as possible to avoid conflict or to be of assistance to locate and help the person get to safety.
Some PFDs do seek to help the person in the water be visible, by waving a flag, usually on the watersports tow boat, so other boaters in the area can be more cautious knowing that someone has fallen into the water. However, this solution fails to meet industry needs. This is because by just being aware that some people are in the water somewhere is not nearly as helpful as being able to see or find them instantaneously. Often boaters will tow more than one person on tubes or other towable, creating a very dangerous situation. Having several people in multiple locations back at the spot where they fell off is very dangerous. On heavy use weekends at many lakes, for example, there will be a lot of traffic and turning around quickly to retrieve your rider can be a problem, as well as the problem of other boater's being able to spot the people in the water quick enough to avoid a conflict with them.